Royal Australasian College of Surgeons concerned over number of Lime Scooter injuries

Surgeons are warning of the risk of significant injuries to Lime Scooter riders, revealing the number of injured riders recorded in just two months.

SURGEONS are warning of the risk of significant injuries to Lime Scooter riders, claiming there were almost 100 injuries recorded in just two months.

Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) is concerned for those that use the popular mode of transport after recording data that shows a total of 88 injuries over two months across three public hospitals in Brisbane.

Queensland Chair of RACS Trauma Committee and Orthopaedic surgeon Dr Matthew Hope said data also needs to be collected in other jurisdictions before the scooters are rolled out elsewhere.

“Data has been collected in Brisbane for a short period in late 2018 which showed a dramatic increase in injuries associated with personal mobility devices,” Dr Hope said.

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The data also shows people aged between 20 and 34 accounted for 66 per cent of the cases overall, and 56 per cent were male.

The injuries included head trauma, upper and lower limb fractures, sprained or strained limbs and serious contusions or abrasions, and 10 per cent of cases requiring surgery.

Lime Scooters Queensland Community Affairs Manager Nelson Savanh said safety was their number one priority.

“While not all injuries get reported to Lime or the authorities, it’s important for riders to remind themselves about safe scooter behaviour. So far in Brisbane we’ve had nearly 600,000 rides and the vast majority of riders scoot safely,” he said.

“Any injury is one too many to us, which is why we have $20 million public liability insurance. We encourage anyone who has been affected by this issue to get in touch with our customer support team.”

RACS claims the increase in significant injuries is a result of a faulty wheel-locking mechanism, which was found in 2018 data.

Lime Scooters said they rectified this issue as soon as they were aware.

“As soon as we learned about the wheel locking issue we decommissioned all of the scooters affected,” Mr Savanh said. “We have deployed a firmware update which has resolved the wheel locking issue and our local operations team continue to perform quality assurance checks on all scooters.”

Chair of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Trauma Committee Dr John Crozier said there needs to be more awareness and legislative measures implemented including the mandatory use of helmets, safe speed limits and age restrictions.